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The Common Core State Standards' focus on nonfiction texts has prompted middle schools to include more historical nonfiction, including books that focus on the United States' racialized past (and present) such as We Are Not Yet Equal by Carol Anderson (2018) and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You (2020) by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. But books for youth about racism have been shrouded in controversy, anti-critical race theory legislation, and calls for censorship, suggesting that we need a better understanding of the books' content. Thus, the purpose of this study was to use content analysis to examine messages about racism and antiracism in We Are Not Yet Equal and Stamped. Findings indicated the texts suggest racism takes numerous forms, and it is foundational and persistent throughout the United States' past and present, manifesting as scientific racism, institutional racism, racist violence, representational racism, and racist language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amanda Griffith of Wake Forest University reviews 'The Economics of Tax Policy,' by Alan J. Auerbach and Kent Smetters. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: 'Eleven papers, prepared for a conference held at the Brookings Institution in December 2015, plus commentary, present nontechnical reviews of insights gained from recent economic research that can inform the policy process and provide an overview of the major areas of tax analysis. Papers discuss tax reform in a changing economy; effects of income-tax changes on economic growth; environmental taxation; tax compliance and enforcement-an overview of new research and its policy implications; economic and distributional effects of tax-expenditure limits; tax benefits for college attendance; tax policy toward low-income families; the economics of corporate- and business-tax reform; US capital gains and estate taxation-a status report and directions for a reform; tax policy and retirement savings; and fundamental tax reform-a comparison of three options. Auerbach is Robert D. Burch Professor of Economics and Law and Director of the Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at the University of California, Berkeley. Smetters is Boettner Chair Professor with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stephen Turner's book, American Sociology, is valuable contribution to the history of the field. In this comment paper, however, I raise questions about two of its core claims: that the feminization of American sociology prevented its collapse, and that the discipline has a two-tiered status structure, with activist scholarship located primarily in the lower tier. We should be sure that Turner is right about these points before we accept his evaluation of the current state of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1990, the American Library Association published its Guidelines on Subject Access to Individual Works of Fiction, Drama, Etc. Neither the 1990 Guidelines nor the work's subsequent 2000 edition is terribly concerned with explaining why increased subject access to works of imaginative literature has come to be needed now more than in the baker's century after Cutter first allowed for such access. Inherent to the 1990 Guidelines is the notion that works of imagination have a value such that they deserve to be accessed in more or less the same manner that nonfiction works are accessed, through aboutness as well as whatness. The paper purports that the origins of this change in cataloging policy are far from humble, that they can in fact be located in a broad swath of social historiography and literary criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article analyses a teacher's efforts to give her students a mentor text for a research-based writing project. Topics discussed include the importance of nonfiction, assigning a year-long writing project to students with focus on nonfiction, reference to the book "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol discussing inequality in American education, moving from quality writing to passionate writing.

Christopher J. Waller of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reviews 'The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve,' by Sarah Binder and Mark Spindel. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: 'Explores the political and economic catalysts that transformed the Federal Reserve's development during its first one hundred years, contextualizing Congress's existential role in driving the evolution of the Fed.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]